‘We’d like to thank you for officially identifying Mr Parker’s body, sir,’ Trudy began crisply. ‘It can’t have been easy.’

‘No, it certainly wasn’t,’ he agreed flatly.

‘You may have seen a piece in the local papers, asking anyone with any knowledge of Mr Parker or the accident, to contact us?’ she went on. She was still annoyed with Duncan Gillingham for giving out her phone number. Luckily, the nuisance calls were dwindling away now.

‘Er, yes, I did see it,’ Geoffrey said, abruptly deciding to sit down on a two-seater settee at right angles to them. That done, he diligently set about straightening a non-existent crease in his trousers, thus continuing to avoid meeting her eye.

‘One of the people who contacted us was Mr Philip Prescott,’ Trudy said, and saw him wince.

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. He’s an accountant for your firm?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is there anything you care to tell us now that you forgot to mention before, Mr Thorpe?’ she asked mildly. But she was holding her breath as she did so. She was very aware that, without having any definite suspicions to go on about the cause of Terrence Parker’s death, this man had every right to turn on them and demand to know what all the questions were about. And what business was it of theirs what state their company finances were in?

Luckily for her though, the vast majority of the British public were anxious to be seen to cooperate with the police and this man proved no exception. His shoulders slumped and he sighed, eventually lifting his eyes as far as the empty fireplace.

‘I suppose you mean the … loan … Terry had taken out of the firm’s accounts?’

‘A loan?’ Trudy echoed delicately.

‘Yes. Well …’ Geoffrey smiled wanly, finally meeting her gaze. ‘That was how he described it to me when I tackled him about it.’

‘I see. It was a rather … convoluted way for him to arrange a loan, wasn’t it?’ she said, careful to keep her tone neutral.

With a sigh, the other man got up again and paced restlessly to look out the window, turning his back firmly on his visitors. ‘Look, it was clear that he’d been skimming,’ he told the view out the window. ‘He knew it, and I knew it. But it would have been a hell of a mess if I’d kicked up a fuss about it. I could have, of course. But imagine the scandal! Besides, in spite of, well … the money thing, we actually worked very well together. And the business is successful. Terry is a … was, a great salesman, and I knew if I kicked him out of the business, well, sales would drop off. Instead we got our heads together, and worked something out.’

‘He was paying you back, in other words,’ Clement put in.